Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

fore we come to thy throne of grace, confessing and acknowledging thee to be our only refuge in all times of peril and danger and by the means of thy Son we most heartily pray thee to forgive us our unthankfulness, disobedience, hypocrisy, and all other our sins, to turn from us thy heavy wrath and displeasure, which we have justly deserved, and to turn our hearts truly unto thee, that daily we may increase in all goodness, and continually more and more fear thy holy name: so shall we glorify thy name, and sing unto thee in Psalms and Hymns, and spiritual songs: and thy enemies and ours shall know themselves to be but men, and not able by any means to withstand thee, nor to hurt those whom thou hast received into thy protection and defence. Grant these things, O Lord of power, and Father of mercy, for thy Christ's sake, to whom with thee and thy Holy Spirit be all honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

A prayer and thanksgiving for the Queen, used of all the Knights and Burgesses in the High Court of Parliament, and very requisite to be used and continued of all her Majesty's loving subjects.

O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, which dost pitch thy tents round about thy people, to deliver them from the hands of their enemies, we thy humble servants, which have ever of old seen thy salvation, do fall down and prostrate ourselves with praise and thanksgiving to thy glorious name, who hast in thy tender mercies from time to time saved and defended thy servant Elizabeth, our most gracious Queen, not only from the hands of strange children, but also of late revealed, and made frustrate, his bloody and most barbarous treason, who being her natural subject, most unnaturally violating thy divine ordinance, hath secretly sought to shed her blood, to the great disquiet of thy Church, and utter discomfort of our souls: his snare is hewn in pieces, but upon thy servant doth the crown flourish. The wicked and bloodthirsty men think to devour Jacob, and to lay waste his dwelling-place: But thou (O God) which rulest in Jacob, and unto the ends of the world, dost daily teach us still to trust in thee for all thy great mercies, and not to forget thy merciful kindness shewed to her, that feareth thy name. O Lord, we confess to thy glory and praise, that thou only hast saved us from destruction, because thou hast not given her over for

a prey to the wicked: her soul is delivered, and we are escaped. Hear us now, we pray thee, O most merciful Father, and continue forth thy lovingkindness towards thy servant, and evermore to thy glory and our comfort keep her in health, with long life, and prosperity, whose rest and only refuge is in thee, O God of her salvation. Preserve her, as thou art wont, preserve her from the snare of the enemy, from the gathering together of the froward, from the insurrection of wicked doers, and from all the traitorous conspiracies of those, which privily lay wait for her life. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only mediator and advocate. Amen.

Jo. Th.

A prayer used in the Parliament only.

O MERCIFUL God and Father, forasmuch as no counsel can stand, nor any can prosper, but only such as are humbly gathered in thy name, to feel the sweet taste of thy Holy Spirit, we gladly acknowledge, that by thy favour standeth the peaceable protection of our Queen and Realm, and likewise this favourable liberty granted unto us at this time to make our meeting together: Which thy bountiful goodness we most thankfully acknowledging, do withal earnestly pray thy divine Majesty so to incline our hearts, as our counsels may be subject in true obedience to thy holy word and will. And sith it hath pleased thee to govern this Realm by ordinary assembling the three estates of the same: our humble prayer is, that thou wilt graff in us good minds to conceive, free liberty to speak, and on all sides a ready and quiet consent to such wholesome laws and Statutes, as may declare us to be thy people, and this Realm to be prosperously ruled by thy good guiding and defence: so that we and our posterity may with cheerful hearts wait for thy appearance in judgment, that art only able to present us faultless before God our heavenly Father: to whom with thee our Saviour Christ, and the Holy Spirit, be all glory both now and ever. Amen,

Imprinted at London
by C. B.

Cum priuilegio.

AN ORDER OF PRAYER AND THANKS GIVING for the preserva- XVIII.

tion of the Queen's Majesty's life and safety: to be

used of the Preachers and Ministers of the Diocese of
Winchester.

With a short extract of William Parry's voluntary confession,
written with his own hand.

Imprinted at London by Ralfe Newberie.

The Direction how to use this Order.

FIRST, where any Preacher is, the next Sunday after the receiving of this order, he shall make a Sermon of the authority and Majesty of Princes, according to the word of God, and how straight duty of obedience is required of all good and Christian subjects, and what a grievous and heinous thing it is both before God and man traitorously to seek their destruction, and the shedding of their blood, which are the Anointed of God, set up by him to be the Ministers of his justice and mercy to his people. In the end of which Sermon he shall set forth and declare the brief notes of the confession of the wicked purpose conceived of late by Doctor Parry, to have murdered the Queen's Majesty, animated thereunto by the Pope and his Cardinals, as you may see it set down here following. Last of all, he shall say the prayer here prescribed for that purpose, and desire the people to lift up their hearts to God together with him. After the prayer, there shall be sung or said

the xxj. Psalm, or some other Psalm to the like effect.

A Short extract of a voluntary confession, made by
William Parry, written with his own hand, the 1
of February. 1584.

William Parry, Doctor of Law, carrying an offensive mind against the state, by reason of his conviction, in a trial of life and death at Newgate, for the attempting of the murdering of one Hugh Hare, for the which notwithstanding he received her Majesty's most gracious pardon, and thereupon departing the Realm, in the year 1582, for that he conceived no hope of advancement here, because he was in his own opinion a pretended Catholic, and had

['The date of his letter to the queen, containing this confession, and written from the Tower, is the 14th. Strype's Annals, Vol. III. Appendix, p. 104.]

not in 22. years received the Communion. At his being in the parts beyond the seas, having first reconciled himself to the Church of Rome at Paris, and then at Milan, conceived with himself a mean (as he pretended) to relieve the Catholics of this Realm, which was by killing of the Queen's Majesty.

And nothing stayed him in this conceit, but only to be assured in conscience, that it was lawful and meritorious, and before the execution thereof to receive absolution from the Pope. For his assurance, or rather settling of his conscience herein, he received full satisfaction, first from an old Jesuit in Venice; next from the Pope's Ambassador, resident there, then from other good fathers (as he termeth them) in Lyons and Paris, and lastly, was encouraged to proceed therein by the Nuncio to the Pope, resident at Paris, who promised him, after he assented to that wicked enterprise, to recommend him at the altar, and also to procure the like to be done generally through Paris, which was accordingly performed in general terms, by Recommending of one that had taken upon him to do some dangerous enterprise, tending greatly to the advancement of the Catholic religion. The said Nuncio did also convey the said Parry's letters directed to the Pope, and to the Cardinal'; by the which he did signify to them his full resolution to proceed in his enterprise, and for his better success in the same prayed his benediction Apostolical, whereunto answer was made by letters written in Rome by the Cardinal, dated the last of January, which he received from him when the Court lay at Greenwich, in March last.

The tenor of those letters was a commendation of his enterprise, an allowance thereof, an absolution in his holiness' name of all his sins, and a request to go forward in it, in the name of God.

Which letters confirmed his resolution to kill her Majesty, and made it clear in his conscience, that it was lawful and meritorious, as he setteth down in his said confession. Whereupon he insinuated himself into the Court, and by ways and means sought to win credit, &c. to the intent

[ The cardinal Como, or, of Como, was prime minister to the Pope. The other personages referred to were named Palmio, Campeggio or Campeius, and Ragazzoni.]

to bring his wicked purpose to pass.

Which at sundry

times he had done, had not the gracious providence of God, by strange means, interrupted his purpose.

A Prayer for the Queen.

O ETERNAL God and merciful Father, with humble hearts we confess that we are not able, either by tongue to utter, or in mind to conceive, the exceeding measure of thine infinite goodness and mercy towards us wretched sinners, and towards this our noble Realm and natural country. Not many years since, when for our unthankful receiving of the heavenly light and truth of thy Gospel we were justly cast into thraldom and misery, and thrust again under the kingdom of darkness, so that our consciences lay groaning under the heavy burdens of error, superstition, and idolatry; even then, even then, O Lord, thou didst vouchsafe of thy great goodness, not only without our desert, but far beyond our hope and expectation, to preserve for us thy faithful servant our gracious prince and Sovereign Queen Elizabeth, and to save her from the jaws of the cruel Tigers, that then sought to suck her blood, and to work to us perpetual tyranny and bondage of conscience. This thou didst, O gracious Lord, undoubtedly, that she might be to this thy church of England a sweet and tender nurse, and that this realm under her happy government might be a blessed Sanctuary, and place of refuge for thy poor afflicted Saints, in these dangerous days persecuted and troubled in many countries for the profession of thy Gospel: yea, and that this our benefit and their comfort might be the more assured, thy divine providence from time to time hath many ways mightily and miraculously preserved and kept her from the crafty, cruel, and traitorous devices of her bloody adversaries, and the deadly enemies of thy Gospel, which with barbarous cruelty have sought to extinguish the light thereof, by shedding her Majesty's most innocent blood: but this thy gracious goodness and mighty providence never so apparently shewed itself at any one time, as even within these few days, when a traitorous subject, never injured or grieved by her, but sundry times holpen, relieved, and countenanced far above his state and worthiness, had of long time retained a wicked and devilish purpose, and often sought occasion and opportunity

« ÎnapoiContinuă »